Patches (Natural Selection 2)/Build 205
Released April 19, 2012 Changelog Features *Most alien structures take longer to build than in 204. *Gorges can help all build structures, not with their “e” key but with his heal spray (including Hive) *2 Hives no longer needed to unlock Tier 2 weapons, and 3 for Tier 3 weapons. *Now Hives can evolve Augmentation which does the same thing. *All built alien structures now “mature” over time. They start off approximately 20% weaker than in Build 204 and over time, they grow to approximately 20% tougher than they are in Build 204. The amount of time it takes, and the starting and ending health/armor varies by structure. *When a structure becomes fully mature, it is granted new capabilities. *The alien commander can speed the maturation process though a new ability called Nutrient Mist. This replaces Catalyze. Mist can affect more than one target at a time: affects everything in 3 meter radius. *Healspray can now also be used to build Alien structures (removed +use for Gorge) *There is no more “research” on the alien side: everything is an “evolution”. So if you lose a structure that had evolved an ability, and then rebuild that structure, you need to re-evolve it. *Aliens no longer have a free choice of initial upgrade category (Crag/Shift/Shade) - it is now an evolution on the hive. *There is a new Cyst ability called Rupture, which is triggered by the Alien commander for pres. It destroys the Cyst and splashes infestation on nearby enemy targets. *Flare and Fury have been removed. *Drifters only appear at base Hive for free - they appear before you log in. *New hives don’t get free Drifters - you must create them if desired. *So Aliens expand more slowly by default. They can expand faster with 1 or more Gorges working in concert with the commander. Aliens are vulnerable where they are building. Gorges really must be protected. *As a result of upgrades being more costly for the alien team, they no longer cost pres for aliens. *Flamethrower can now burn up spores. *Added Power Packs, which can be used to power a single structure. *Added enemy player names as crosshair text back in. *Commander chat appears now in a different color. *Added scan icon for minimap. *Added power nodes to minimap. Balance *Umbra energy cost increased from 30 to 50 to reduce frequency. *Mature Harvesters have lower max health, which makes them more vulnerable for longer. *Alien evolutions are now FREE! That is, it doesn't cost a Skulk 2 resources to evolve Regeneration. *Changed ARCs to have different max health/armor when deployed and undeployed (they have no armor when deployed). *Power nodes are now only re-buildable after destruction when the aux power (red light after ~18 seconds) has kicked in. *Mines can now hurt their owner when detonating. *Changed Hive to spawn drifters on Commander login, but only for initial Hive. *Reduced Skulk air control slightly to prevent 180° turns in mid air (only noticeable when you perform such 180° turns constantly) *Removed slowdown from spit. General Fixes *Fixed error caused by going to the Ready Room as an Alien with the regeneration upgrade. *Fixed script error caused by welding a wall. *Fixed bug where billboards were rendered upside down. *Fixed bug where Stomping the infantry portals while all players are in respawn queue ends the game. *Fixed rare script error that sometimes occurred while the Sentry was shooting at a target. *Fixed Marine sprinting speed, which was still higher as intended (from 7 down to 6 as in build ~197) *Fixed potential crash bug when unregistering an object from script. *Fixed crash in the Overview generator when the graphics device could not be initialized. *Fixed crash when passing a nil value or the animation graph. *Fixed bug where static props would not render in the Cinematic Editor. *Fixed a bug where the smashed state of the techpoint model revealed the Alien starting position to the Marine Commander. *Fixed bug where infestation blocks the Commanders view. *Fixed a bug where spectators and players in ready room could not see the game time. *Various crashes related to collision objects being destroyed. *Fixed bug where triggering stab directly after blink caused then attack animation/sound to be stucked in an endless loop. *Whip hit sound is only played when the Whip actually hits an enemy. *Fixed a bug where mines losing their owner and not accounting kills properly when the Marine who placed them dies. *Fixed a bug where Onos Stomp is stopped by small ledges. *Fixed a bug where you could give an attack order to units which are not sighted (and reveal start locations) *Fixed a bug where you would see the pilot effect on other weapons when dropping a Flamethrower. *Fixed a bug where Alien Commander could always see mines. *Health circles for players won't rotate anymore. *Fixed game rules script error when reloading a Lua file (thanks Matso!) *Removed problematic Egg mist effect. *Fixed a bug where Gorge could initiate belly slide while running backwards. *Fixed a bug where looping spore sound would not stop when you switch ability. *Fixed bug where wall walking Skulks would not play footstep sounds for other players. *Fixed a bug where Fade would remain cloaked when using shadow step. *Fixed a bug where you would see the umbra cloud on invisible units. *Fixed a bug were a Marine could shoot a grenade in his own back (thanks matso!) *Fixed bug which allowed you to parasite dead players (and get score) *Fixed bug where Commander would be visible sometimes to other players. *Fixed a but where Fade would enter blink mode without having to press secondary attack button again. *Fixed an exploit related to rapid jumping (with macros or programmable keyboards): whenever you attempt to jump to early, you lose all additional speed. *Holding down shift will not spam Shadow Step anymore. Instead you will need to press the button every time. *Changed Stomp to also affect ARCs. Optimization *Optimized calls to QueryPerformanceCounter (was slow on some CPU architectures) *Improved the performance of broad phase collision detection. *Reduced bandwidth usage for minimap icons. *Disabled PhysX visualization unless debug draw is enabled. Improvement *MAC weld/construct and order sounds and effects are now handled client side. *Bullets will now fire the immediately upon pressing the shoot button and will use the same exact angles that the player is viewing before shooting (thanks Matso!). *Improvements to the hitreg debug tool (thanks Matso!) *Added new blink effect. *Adjust Axe damage range to fit the visuals. *Adjusted Skulk bite so it will no longer be possible to miss a Marine who is directly in front of the Skulk. *Added shader for bilebomb hit. *Reduced network traffic regarding hit effects by ~75% *Fades now "fade" out instead of disappearing instantly. While fading out, they can be damaged. *Fade Blink sounds play now at world space instead of following the player. Sound *Added Gorge and Lerk footstep sounds. *More lerkie bilebomb sound, added acid sizzle sound to bilebomb hit. *Whip has a swing and miss sound now. ns2_mineshaft *"Central Drilling" lower level access tunnel now connects to the "Brew Room". *"Ore Extraction" No longer connects directly to Central Drilling. *Random Starts re-enabled: "Operations" and "Drill Repair" are Marine only random starts. Either team can start at "Ore Transfer". "Crushing Machine", "Ore Extraction" and "Cave" are alien only random starts. *Upper level doorway in "Central Drilling" to "Brew Room" removed. *Vent between "Crushing Machine" and "Ore Extraction" closed off. ns2_tram *Fixed cyst pathing issue between Server Room and Control. *Fixed some build issues on gratings and in the tram tunnels. *Fixed some issues where you could build outside the level. SDK *Added unique icons for the different types of light (thanks Andrew!) *Fixed bug with drag selecting objects in the orthographic views. *Changed atmospherics to be disabled when "Show Post Processing" is unchecked. *Fixed bug where typing values in the rotation filed for texture mapping wouldn't update the mesh. *Fixed bug where the background in the Editor was rendered on top of emissive only surfaces. *Added "enter node" tags to the animation graph system. *Added CommanderBuild group for geometry that the Commander can build on but will be otherwise ignored. category:Patches